Those of us long in the tooth can regale you with stories about print media’s history of hostility to religion, so it is a great satisfaction to be part of this Civil Religion blog project created by Post-Dispatch religion reporter Tim Townsend. Tim’s Sunday, front page story about our archdiocesan seminarians was a delight to read. What a refreshing change from years past.

And Monday’s post from Rabbi Mark L. Shook — Memorials Do Matter — about his youth group’s ingenious Holocaust project was gratifying as well. Look at the joy on the faces of all those young people!

What we are doing matters.

This morning’s Catholic news services carried a story about just this topic, how religious groups can better public discourse:

WASHINGTON-Religious groups can better public discourse, John Carr and Mark Silk, Ph.D., said at the spring meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs and the National Council of Synagogues of America, May 12, in New York.

“When religious people bring their most fundamental values to public debate, they enrich rather than impoverish the public square,” said Carr, executive director of the bishops’ Department for Justice, Peace and Human Development. He drew on the bishops’ statement, Faithful Citizenship, to argue for an active, nonpartisan role in U.S. politics for churches, synagogues and other religious bodies…..”

We are privileged to be frank and forthcoming about our faith and to be listened to and discussed — and argued with — in this forum. I was thinking this when I received an item from a priest friend. It seems “an extraordinary online archive, The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, is now making available (and searchable) the records of London’s main criminal court from 1674 through 1913.”

My friend keyed in the word “Romish” and came up with 102 records including this account of the trial of a Catholic priest:

Amongst many others, two Indictments were exhibited against one William Burnet , by birth (as is said a Scotchman but educated at St. Omers, Dorway, or some other forraign Seminary) by the first he was charged to be a Romish Priest, having received orders beyond the Seas, and that contrary to the statute (in that case made and provided) he had presumed to come into England, and so incurred the Penalties of High Treason. By the second, he was indicted for perverting and seducing several of his Majesties good subjects, and reconciling them to the Church and See of Rome…..

You will not be surprised to find the priest was found guilty:

…..Whereupon after a full hearing, Debating, and weighing of the matter, the Jury brought him in guilty of High Treason upon the last Indictment, and accordingly on Saturday he received sentence, To be Hang’d, Drawn, and Quartered; which he received with a modest Generosity, saying these words, Gloria in Excelsis Deo, &c.

That was then, of course. Or so we would like to think. The Holocaust occurred during my lifetime. Today, after decades of memorials and pleas of “Never Again” we hear news on a daily basis — from all corners of the world — about similar outrages, attacks and murders of persons guilty only of being religious believers.

But we have this forum. We will have fundamental disagreements — that’s OK, we’re not ecumaniacs — and they should be aired and discussed, as they have been so far, with heavy doses of information and reasoned arguments — and a “no tolerance” policy when it comes to attitude, anger and derision. Stendahl’s Rules.

One topic, an ongoing one, about which there will be disagreement is abortion. I’m betting this group can get into that and other hot-button topics without being “Hang’d, Drawn, and Quartered”. So far, so good.